1980

my ears where sounds on sounds of weeping pound and pound at me a place where no light shines at all the laments the anguished cries of grief cut off from hope where we live behind wires and alarms alone with five cats and the three inch dents in my head the hair e cut myself in my own world crying in the chapel the curtains pulled in a housecoat with my cats to walk in the middle of the road scared of the shadows and the men behind me that in a yorkshire way they say weather is letting us down again but he is not here is a lorry driver called peter who drives a cab with a name beginning with the letter C on the side and lives in bradford in a big grey house elevated above the street behind wrought iron gates with steps leading up to the front door number six in its street peter will have committed crimes before and is connected to the containerbase at stourton and he will kill for the last time in leeds on Wednesday the tenth of december nineteen eighty standing upon the brink of griefs abysmal valley faces painted with pity e beg of you in the name of the god e never knew save me from this evil place and worse and lead me there

Chapter 19

I wake in a dead man’s house on his cream sofa in his blood-splattered white front room, his wife in the hospital, my own at her side.

I drink his tea and use his razor, his soap and his towels, listening to his radio play songs about videos, songs about Einstein, songs about spacemen, songs about toys, songs about games – waiting for the news:

‘Refusing to comment on various reports in yesterday’s papers, Mr Clement Smith, the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester issued the following statement:

‘‘Unless there are exceptional circumstances in a particular case, and it is thought necessary in the public interest, it is not ordinarily the Chief Constable’s policy to comment on any police inquiry or investigation which may be in progress, or to confirm or deny the existence of any such investigation, should it or should it not exist.”

‘Meanwhile an unemployed man will appear before Rochdale magistrates later this morning in connection with the hoax call made to the Daily Mirror in Manchester last week from a man claiming to be the Yorkshire Ripper. Police managed to trace a second call placed to the Mirror offices on Friday night and arrested Raymond Jones at his parents’ home in Rochdale…’

I switch off his radio, wash his cup, straighten his kitchen, and check I’ve left nothing on.

Then I lock his door and leave his cream sofa, his blood-splattered white front room, his house, this dead man’s house -

Leave this sofa, this room, this house of the dead -

Leave it for another -

Yorkshire, bloody Yorkshire -

Primitive Yorkshire, Medieval Yorkshire, Industrial Yorkshire -

Three Ages, three Dark Ages -

Local Dark Ages -

Local decay, industrial decay -

Local murder, industrial murder -

Local hell, industrial hell -

Dead hells, dead ages -

Dead moors, dead mills -

Dead cities -

Crows, the rain, and their Ripper -

The Yorkshire Ripper -

Yorkshire bloody Ripper.

Thornton Crematorium is halfway between Denholme and Allerton, on the way back into Bradford.

I know the way, know the place -

On the dark stair, we miss our step.

Raining heavily, it’s nearly ten-thirty:

10:25:01 -

Monday 29 December 1980.

I park on the road and stare up the hill towards the dark building with the chimney, black in the weather, past small stones with small names, the dead flowers, cigarette ends and crisp packets, the dead leaves, tyres in the rain the only sound.

Know the place well -

I’ve been here before:

Sunshine hurting, it’s gone ten:

The leather strap of my father’s watch, itching in the heat -

Thursday 7 July 1977 -

Parked on the road, staring up the hill towards the pale building with the chimney, white in the bright light, the small stones with the small names, flowers, the white clouds in the blue sky, trees, the birds singing -

I’m taking down number plates, putting faces to names, on my own time and of my own leave -

Compassionate leave:

Another miscarriage, the last -

Joan at her parents’ house.

Thursday 7 July 1977 -

Burying him today, almost three weeks on:

Sunday 19 June 1977 -

Detective Inspector Eric Hall, Bradford Vice, murdered -

Wife beaten and raped -

Murdered and raped at their Denholme house by a gang of four men -

Black men -

Described by police as being of West Indian origin.

Parked on the road, staring up the hill, taking down number plates, putting white faces to white names -

Police faces to police names:

Chief Constable Ronald Angus, Assistant Chief Constable George Oldman, Detective Chief Superintendent Maurice Jobson, Detective Chief Superintendent Peter Noble, Detective Superintendent Richard Alderman, Detective Superintendent James Prentice, Detective Inspector Robert Craven, all Leeds -

No family, only coppers -

Not Bradford -

All Leeds.

There’s a tap on the window and I jump -

Back:

It’s Murphy, jacket over his head.

‘Christ,’ I say, winding down the window.